


Blood and Water

by neurotrophicfactors



Series: In Another Life [2]
Category: Persona 3, Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Dysfunctional Family, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 06:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12248712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neurotrophicfactors/pseuds/neurotrophicfactors
Summary: It’s not that Souji doesn’t feel bitter toward his parents at all, because hedoes.It’s that Minato thinks he should bemorebitter and he doesn’t understand why Souji doesn’tsnapand rebel, kick and scream until they stop paying expenses and start paying attention to their only son.





	Blood and Water

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back!! Sort of. I've been busy and doing a lot of art instead of writing. A couple notes about this one though: the events of Persona 4 essentially happened, but without the supernatural aspect, and some of Persona 3's shit went down as well.
> 
> Enjoy!

_The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb._

 

 

“They aren’t bad people,” Souji says and immediately presses his lips together. It sounds too much like protest, like an alien _insisting_ that it’s human even as it blinks with its second set of eyelids, dubious to his own ears.

Lying next to him on top of his bed, Minato raises an eyebrow, or perhaps both of them, though it’s impossible to tell with the way his bangs fall over the right side of his face. He’s warm where they’re pressed against each other along the lengths of their bodies through ironed shirts and khakis, illuminated by lamplight as evening darkens to night. Skepticism bleeds through the citrine glow and catches on the lining of Souji’s stomach, twisting it into an uncomfortable knot.

He assures Minato, “ _Really_ , they’re not. I know they love me; I just don’t think they ever really understood the level of commitment it takes to raise a child.”

“Do _you?_ ” Minato asks pointedly. The first thing Souji learned about him when they met was that he has a surgical scalpel for a tongue.

It’s a good question, and not even two years ago the answer would have been ‘no.’ Before Inaba. Before Nanako and Dojima and friends who talked about their relationships with their parents. Souji wasn’t ignorant. Between the number of times he had to move and the nights he returned to an empty apartment, he knew that his family life was not typical, but he lacked the perspective to see just how many standard deviations lay between him and the norm.

The realization had been a slow and creeping thing, like water filling up a sealed room around him. His silent and confused fury when he found Nanako home alone was the water at his ankles. It reached his thighs when his friends began to tell him about their families: Yosuke and his dad, Yukiko and her mom, Kou, and Kanji, and Yumi. His waist, when he realized that three months had passed since their last phone call. His neck, when he acknowledged that he didn’t miss them. And when November came and he finally called them to tell them about his uncle and cousin with threadbare composure; when they apologized and offered condolences and _didn’t come for him_ like he knew his friends’ parents would, it closed over the top of his head and drew the refutations from his lungs.

“Yes,” he says quietly, thinking of brown hair in pigtails and _every day’s great at your Junes_.

It wasn’t that they didn’t care about him. He knew it then and he knows it now. They simply didn’t know where that care fit into their priorities. Love isn’t always warm. Sometimes love is a meticulous apartment and new clothes and crushing expectation. A path that leads to a bright future that you never asked for, but was provided for you all the same. Sometimes love is working tirelessly to give everything you have but your time and affection. Sometimes love doesn’t feel very much like love at all.

Minato’s gaze flickers over to him, searching with storm cloud eyes as lightning gathers behind his retinas. His knuckles slide down the back of Souji’s hand until he can tangle their fingers together, toying with them idly, because Minato knows that Souji craves touch like a flower twisting to follow the sun. A yearning that’s quiet and desperate and grateful for every ray of light it can soak up.

“That’s not enough,” Minato says, his voice hard in stark contrast to his gentle fingers, and the breath leaves Souji in a sigh.

“Maybe so,” he replies, “but it is what it is.”

Minato frowns but the words have adhered to his teeth. It’s not that Souji doesn’t feel bitter toward his parents at all, because he _does_ , and he tastes it on the back of his tongue every time they forget to call to tell him they’ll be home late and when he smiles at them demurely as they ask about his studies and not his social life. It’s that Minato thinks he should be _more_ bitter and he doesn’t understand why Souji doesn’t _snap_ and rebel, kick and scream until they stop paying expenses and start paying attention to their only son.

It is exactly, Souji will never tell him, the kind of thought he would expect a boy who was orphaned at six-years-old to have. Minato has always had a very stringent idea of what a parent should be, despite his lack of personal experience, and the Setas fail to meet that definition at almost every turn.

In the end, it’s Souji’s own fault that Minato thinks so poorly of them. He must have been careless with his words as he explained their relationship, or Minato must have read too far into what he was saying. Whatever the case, it was Souji’s responsibility to reflect positively on his parents. He does not want to seem unappreciative, especially after everything they’ve sacrificed for him, he thinks as guilt gnaws at him with the anxious abandon of a rabbit with cardboard.

It made dinner an awkward affair tonight.

Like Souji, Minato is quiet by nature, but tonight it took on a different form. There was weight to it, transforming it into something that was almost tangible. He did nothing overt, speaking only when spoken to and offering polite, albeit brief, responses in return; but his eyes were sharpened to dagger-points and his back was straight and his head was held high. His defiance was not spelled out in words but rather his refusal to submit.

If Souji’s parents noticed, they gave no indication of it. Souji introduced Minato as his senpai (which is mostly true) and, when asked, told them that Minato was tutoring him in French (which is less true. Souji took the class as an elective when he saw that Gekkoukan offered it, and Minato occasionally corrects his work since he spent a year studying in France after he graduated). They met through a volunteer program at the school (not at all true. Minato works at Chagall Café and just happened to catch a glimpse of Souji’s French homework while serving his coffee and made a snide remark about a mis-conjugated verb).

“ _‘Minato-senpai_ ,’ huh.” He strokes his index finger back and forth along the underside of Souji’s. “Been a while since I heard that.” He was Arisato-san first, and then Minato-senpai when Souji found out that he had graduated from high school two years ago. Two months ago, he became Minato.

“Sorry,” Souji says, “I know how much you hated when I called you that.”

“Mm.” Minato extracts his hand from Souji’s, but before he can begin to feel bereft, the blue-haired boy is rolling toward him with his forearm braced on the far side of Souji’s chest and their faces inches apart. “They’re going to find out sooner or later, you know,” he breathes. “That you’re not interested in girls.”

 _He’s beautiful_ , Souji thinks as he studies Minato’s features. The angle of his cheekbones, the curve of his nose, lips a little thinner than his own and slightly chapped, always soft but never yielding. Eyes like hurricanes. He looks like something born from the sea but Souji knows that he is made of fire. “I know.”

He presses a kiss to the place just below Souji’s ear. “They’ll start asking about girlfriends.” His jaw. “Why you spend so much time with me during breaks…” His pulse. “…And after you graduate.”

Souji brings his hand to Minato’s back and rolls them over abruptly so that he is now the one hovering above Minato. He leans down while those hurricane eyes are still wide and presses their mouths together in a slow, languid kiss. Minato sucks in a sharp breath through his nose and his hands come up to grip the back of Souji’s shirt. He still tastes like ginger and the expensive green tea that Souji’s parents ask him to buy when he goes grocery shopping.

If Minato is fire then Souji is the storm, air crackling and ions charging until he strikes out, burning and electric. By the time Souji pulls away, Minato’s cheeks are exquisitely flushed and they’re both breathing hard.

“You’ll have to tell them eventually,” Minato says, undeterred.

Souji sighs, pressing his face into Minato’s neck. “I know. Just… not while I’m still living with them.” They won’t like it, he knows. Appearances matter very much to his parents.

“And what about nursing school?”

“Not yet.” His parents want him to be a lawyer. Souji wants to help people.

Minato hums and wraps his arms around him fully as Souji lets his weight press down on him. His cheek presses against the side of Souji’s head. “Come live with me after you graduate.”

“Junpei won’t mind?”

“Nah, he likes you.”

Souji nods, chewing the inside of his lip. “I’ll think about it.”

For a long minute there’s silence and warmth. The steady rise and fall of Minato’s chest beneath him and his heart beating rhythmically through shirts and skin. It makes Souji want to tell him everything until there are no barriers between them. Until they breathe as one.

He licks his lips and says, “Winter break is coming up soon.”

“And Christmas.”

Souji grins, unable to help himself at the thought. He’s never had someone to share Christmas with before. “Yeah! But, um… I was wondering if you would come with me to Inaba? I can’t introduce you as my boyfriend to my parents right now, but I want you to meet my friends, and my uncle and cousin. I know Nanako would love you; you’re so good with kids.”

“Sh-shut up.” And Souji laughs because he knows that Minato is blushing. Minato pinches him on his back. “I’ll see what days I can get off,” he mumbles.

Souji kisses his neck twice because he’s comfortable and it’s in front of him. “Thank you.”

Minato holds him tighter and there’s a fierce note to his voice as he says, “I’ll always make time for you.”

Because that’s what Minato’s love is.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it! Please share your thoughts with me, my family is starving.


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